


The Best is Yet to Be

by filthy_rat



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff without Plot, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4412273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filthy_rat/pseuds/filthy_rat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>self-indulgent sap, set sometime after the defeat of Corypheus</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best is Yet to Be

His hands won’t sit still. They fidget ceaselessly, twitching from different places – smoothing back his hair, adjusting his lopsided tie, easing nonexistent wrinkles from the crisp white shirt he wears. He hasn’t felt this nervous since… well, since the _last_ time. Maker, he doesn’t even want to think about it. He couldn’t sleep at all last night – and it was more than just anxiety. He missed her warmth. They’d only been apart _a day_ and it tore him up inside.

The tent flap behind him ruffles as Cole and Hawke push their way inside. Both are dressed for the occasion in dark slacks and the same crisp white shirt Varric wears, and Cole has even brushed his hair. Or, more likely, someone else brushed it for him. A crown of flowers perches atop the boy’s head. Merrill’s doing, maybe?

“How do I look?” asks Varric, turning away from the floor-length mirror to face them.

Garrett snorts. “Like you’ve just stepped off a horse after an all-day ride,” he says, approaching the dwarf. Deft fingers loosen the improperly tied bowtie and straighten mussed strands of hair as Varric groans.

“Aren’t you excited?” asks Cole, offering Varric a shy smile.

The dwarf exhales a nervous chuckle, fingers twitching as he watches Hawke fix his tie. “Yeah, kid, I just… last time I did this, it uh… didn’t go so well.”

“She’s beautiful, you know,” says Hawke quietly, glancing up at Varric as he finishes tying the bowtie correctly.

This piece of information successfully distracts the nerve-addled dwarf. His eyes flick instantly to Hawke. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Wait till you see her.”

“…You’ll never let me live it down if I start _crying_ , will you?”

“Nope,” says Garrett with a grin, straightening and turning Varric to face the mirror. He claps the dwarf on the shoulder. “And neither will anyone else.”

Outside the tent, music begins playing. Soft and sweet, played on a lute. Slowly, other instruments join in and the wind carries the tune. Varric’s breath catches in his throat. It’s the song Varric wrote for her, the song he hums for her when she can’t sleep. The song that replaced another in his repertoire. He doesn’t even know if he’s written it down, but somehow… she had given the musicians sheet music with the tune.

Varric closes his eyes and smiles a small, secret smile. Damn, but she knows him well. She picked the song that she knew would give him courage. And it worked. _Of course_.

Hawke grins down at his stout friend as Cole ducks out of the tent to take his place by the altar. “Ready?”

Varric sucks in a deep, steadying breath and nods. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he mutters, and follows Hawke out of the tent. His feet move of their own accord, carrying him up the little aisle in the middle of the small collection of chairs that have been arranged in Skyhold’s courtyard. From either side, familiar faces grin happily at him as he passes. Merrill reaches out to squeeze his forearm briefly.

Leliana smiles at him as he approaches his place by her altar. Once she had gotten wind of the ceremony, she had insisted on officiating, waving away their concerns about a secular exchanging of vows.

The music gradually changes, and Varric’s chest tightens as the first notes of the wedding march reach his ears. Beneath his ribs, his heart pounds painfully fast. The sounds of the few guests in attendance standing makes it skip a precious beat, and he turns slowly on the spot to look.

Hawke was wrong, first of all. She isn’t beautiful. She is _breathtaking_.

Haloed in the pale blueish white of her veil and gown, Aysunn’s face lights up at the sight of him. Her dress is simply made and there are only sandals on her feet, but she could be wearing a burlap sack for all he cares. Instantly, hot tears well up in his eyes and he swallows back a sob. He can practically feel Hawke grinning beside him, but he doesn’t care. All that he cares about is this glorious woman approaching. As always, she steals the air from his lungs just to look at her, smiling that broad smile, just for him.

Maker, he’s a lucky bastard.

If he’s truly honest with himself, he doesn’t remember much of the ceremony. Vaguely, he remembers reciting the vows he’d written for her, fingers shaking as he slides the ring onto her finger, and he recalls only a little of hers. Too much energy spent on choking back his tears. At last, he says those two little words.

“I do.”

They are echoed in her voice, and at last, at last, she leans down and kisses him. He notices, in those last seconds before their lips meet, that a constellation of tears cling to her lashes. She’s been crying too. Tears of joy, he hopes. Judging from the smile she sneaks into their kiss, he hopes correctly.

As they withdraw, grinning like fools, the audience bursts into applause and cheers and hoots, and the sounds follow them as they leave the courtyard hand in hand.

“Does it feel any different?” asks Aysunn, later that night when they are alone in her quarters. They’ve spent the better part of the past four hours consummating their new marriage, relearning each other blissfully slow, and now they rest sated and spent, her head pillowed on his stomach as his fingers move lazily across her back.

“Hmm?” sighs Varric, eyelids drooping, content. “No, not really,” he says in a soft voice.

“Not even a little?” she asks, lifting her head and looking up at him with those burning eyes he loves so much.

“Hmm, I suppose it feels more _official_ ,” he admits, reaching down to brush a strand of silver-white hair from her face. She leans into the touch and his breath hitches. Maker, will he _ever_ get used to her? “We still have to figure out what to do with our names. _Tradition_ dictates the wife takes the husband’s, but I’ve never been one for tradition.”

“Can’t I keep mine?”

“Well, that’s one way to scandalize the visiting nobility,” chuckles Varric. “I was… sort of thinking of combining the two? Tethradaar? Adaarthras?” He frowns. Maybe it’s not a good idea after all.

“That first one. I like that,” Aysunn says quietly, lowering her head to his stomach with a happy sigh.

“Tethradaar it is then,” he says with finality.

As she drifts off into a contented slumber, Varric finds himself staring at the golden ring around his finger as it traces invisible patterns onto her slate skin. It's not the first piece of jewelry he's worn there, but he hopes it'll be the last. Aysunn mumbles something in her sleep, her horns digging gently into his stomach as she adjusts her position. Varric finds himself grinning at no one in particular.

_Yes_ , he thinks, _It does feel different. It feels **good**_.


End file.
